Editor's Introduction

Abstract

The last issue of The Cormac McCarthy Journal was a significant one, as it was our first with Penn State University Press. This one also marks a transition—in 2016, CMJ begins biannual publication. It's a nice development for our readers, who I hope will enjoy the more frequent installments of this ongoing conversation about McCarthy's work, and also for authors. As the number of submissions has increased over the years, sometimes it was a year or more between an article's acceptance and its appearance in print. Now that timeline will be appropriately speedier.The 2015 issue appeared just in time for “Fifty Years of Cormac McCarthy,” a conference held at the University of Memphis that celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of McCarthy's first novel The Orchard Keeper. With presentations covering that novel as well as McCarthy's other works, an evening keynote by Brian Evenson, and a good helping of Memphis barbeque, the conference was, as always, a great time and a wonderful opportunity to see the new directions that McCarthy scholarship is taking. This summer, July 7–9, 2016, the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies in Berlin will host the conference “Crossroads and Transgressions: Cormac McCarthy between Worlds,” which is co-organized with the University of Cologne, the University of Paderborn, and the Cormac McCarthy Society. (For more information and to see the call for papers, go to http://www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/en/v/McCarthy/index.html.) Finally, the Society plans to organize another U.S. conference for Fall 2017, so stay tuned for more information as that comes together.In the following pages, Casey Jergenson continues a discussion of The Road and capitalism that was begun in a different vein by Jordan Dominy in the last issue. James Christie brings Heidegger to bear on Blood Meridian, and Brad Bannon uses that novel as well as No Country for Old Men to trace McCarthy's “theory of agency.” Harriet Poppy Stilley investigates both masculine and feminine agency as represented in Child of God, and Russell M. Hillier offers a reconsideration of John Grady Cole's heroism, particularly as seen in Cities of the Plain, the third novel of the Border Trilogy. And finally, Steven Knepper contributes what I believe is only the second published article on McCarthy's most recent work, The Counselor, and reads that narrative in light of theories of tragedy. (It's worth noting that the first piece on this screenplay was published by another of our authors here, Russell M. Hillier, in The Explicator, and is also an excellent read.) Though we don't have a book review in this issue, we'll have one or more forthcoming in the next. As we continue biannual publication, we may expand our book reviews to include monographs or collections that range beyond the exclusive study of McCarthy, and so please do be in touch if you have suggestions on that score.Enjoy, and keep in touch.